Taylor Swift, Mom Emotional on Opening Day of Groping Trial

Taylor Swift and her mom Andrea both appeared in a Denver courtroom on Tuesday (Aug. 8) during the opening day of a trial that centers around Swift's claim that she was groped by a Denver radio personality in 2013.

USA Today reports that Andrea Swift grew visibly emotional in court during opening statements, causing Swift to look her way several times, swallowing hard and whispering to her lawyer during the court proceedings.

Swift is suing former KYGO disc jockey David Mueller after an alleged incident backstage at her Denver show in 2013. The singer claims Mueller placed his hand under her skirt and on her backside during a meet and greet photo opp. He filed suit against Swift in 2015, alleging slander and deliberate interference with his employment contract. She replied with a countersuit alleging assault and battery. She gave her side of the story in a deposition in July of 2016.

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Jury selection began before opening statements, during which Swift's attorney, Douglas Baldridge, questioned what reason Swift would have to make up her claims.

"That's the one and only story we have to tell you — that Mr. Mueller grabbed her rear end," he said, while Mueller's lawyer, Gabriel McFarland, told the jury that inappropriate touching is wrong, but "falsely accusing someone of inappropriate touching is equally offensive" and wrong.

A judge threw out Mueller’s slander claim in June of 2017, and in July another judge sanctioned him for destroying a two-hour audio recording he secretly taped during an interview with his radio station boss the day before he was fired.

“The court takes an even more dim view of plaintiff’s counsel’s unexplained failure to obtain, listen to, preserve and produce the complete audio file, but that is a separate issue from whether plaintiff should be sanctioned," the judge wrote.

In court Tuesday, Mueller continued to deny Swift's version of the groping but allowed that he might have touched her "rib cage, or rib, or ribs" when trying to jump into a photo with her. A photo of the meet and greet obtained by TMZ shows his hand behind her in exact relation to the area where Swift says he inappropriately touched her.